Today students took their unit exam over The Hot Zone. Homework is to complete what your group decided to do for the first Joy Luck Club assignment.

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving! On Tuesday, we did some preparation for the upcoming week:

1. As a reminder, you will have an exam over out Hot Zone unit on Monday. Please make sure you have read the Time Magazine article as preparation. Time 2014 Person of the Year – The Ebola Fighters
2. Monday is the last day to turn in field trip forms! Field Trip Letter – CCC and Asia Society Here is the form in case you misplaced yours.
3. Homework for Monday night will be to begin reading The Joy Luck Club. We broke into small reading circles and students choose their selections and made a reading schedule. If you were absent, we made sure to incorporate you into a group. Here are those documents: The Joy Luck Club Reading Overview

Also, here is an extra credit opportunity: Contagion Viewing Guide

I’ll look forward to hearing your Thanksgiving stories when we get back! 🙂

Students took their Hot Zone Vocabulary 3 quiz in class today. Homework is HZ Reading Guide 8: The Hot Zone Reading Guide 8

I also gave students the article that their Hot Zone Unit exam will use, on Monday, November 30: Time 2014 Person of the Year – The Ebola Fighters. Students need to read and annotate this article over the break and bring it to use it on the test on Monday.

As a reminder, if you did not turn in your field trip forms today, please bring them tomorrow!

Students wrote essays today about altruism. Homework was just to finish up the “Wild Flavor” reading guide. Please remember that you have a quiz over the Hot Zone List 3 words on Monday.

We began today’s class by reviewing the Hot Zone List 3 vocabulary words. You will have a quiz over those on Monday – I highly recommend that you take the practice quiz.

Tomorrow in class, students will write an expository essay for a major grade. Here is the prompt: Altruism Essay Prompt. And here is the rubric: Altruism Essay Rubric. You may start thinking about what you would like to write about, but the actual composition must happen in class tomorrow.

For classwork, I gave students time to begin reading the essay “Wild Flavor” and work on the reading guide: Wild Flavor – Abridged Wild Flavor Reading Guide. This will be due on Monday, and there will be no additional homework over the weekend.

Homework for tonight is Reading Guide 7: The Hot Zone Reading Guide 7

Students had the option of either completing their next reading guide (The Hot Zone Reading Guide 6) or answering questions about a podcast (Radiolab Patient Zero Podcast Questions). Whichever one you didn’t do in class is for homework.

EDIT: Apparently three of the questions on the reading guide are repeated! Please just skip over those – I’m sorry for listing them twice!

We began today by talking about The Hot Zone. Then students read an article about metaphors in science writing, and practiced writing their own explanations of scientific concepts using non-literal comparisons. In Defense Of Metaphors In Science Writing   The Hot Zone – Simile, Metaphor, and Analogy Project

Homework for tonight was Reading Guide 5. The Hot Zone Reading Guide 5 – Revised

Students took their Parts of Speech Exam in class today. Homework for tonight was the Hot Zone Reading Guide 4: The Hot Zone Reading Guide 4

As I mentioned in class, please make sure to bring your laptop tomorrow!

On Thursday, students began working on a reading guide for the Edgar Allen Poe short story, “The Masque of the Red Death.” The Masque of the Red Death

On Friday, we talked about the short story (students will turn in the reading guide on Monday). We also discussed prepositions and your parts of speech test on Monday. Here is the study guide for that: Grammar Test Study Guide You will also have some vocabulary words from this semester on that exam!

Finally, students completed an analysis of some Ebola-related political cartoons. Ebola Political Cartoons

We discussed the Hot Zone reading guide 2 in class today, as well as the article and multiple choice questions that we started yesterday. Homework for tonight is the Hot Zone reading guide 3. The Hot Zone Reading Guide 3 We also went over conjunctions in preparation for the parts of speech test on Monday – see the board for copies of those notes.

I will be at a training tomorrow (Thursday, November 11). Please turn in your homework as usual to the substitute. During class, you will be reading the Edgar Allen Poe short story, “The Masque of the Red Death.” You will turn in that reading guide on Monday.